Good practices

I got off to a slow start with flying. Before I finished my studies, I’d never even set foot in a plane, nor did I have a driving licence. That was nothing unusual at the time – not for an environmental science student, anyway.

Fifteen years later, I have travelled at least ten times around the world for work, I regularly flew to other continents, and I have a driving licence in three different countries. Nowadays that’s nothing unusual either, not even for an environmental scientist.

Five years ago, I decided to give up flying. I like travelling, and I don’t like changing my life. So it would be convenient if I could now report that it’s impossible for a researcher to give up flying. But that’s not the case. Flying less, or not at all, is indeed possible – sometimes even there are benefits. Here then are three points in favour of not flying.

Keeping your feet on the ground

Flying affects how we do science. Abstaining from flying has served to increasingly focus my research work on real, local problems in my local environment. This means that I’m working with colleagues from other disciplines and practitioners here in Switzerland. And that’s exactly why I find not flying exciting – it spurs me to reconsider my role as a scientist in solving environmental problems.

As an ecologist I have the choice between flying to conference rooms where I discuss how to better analyse more data that shows ever more dramatically how badly affected our ecosystems are, or I can work together with social scientists, artists, urban planners, and practitioners at home to innovate carbon-free cities.

Better to fly less often, and tackle real, thorny issues more vigorously. Better to deal with your own problems – even if there’s no acclaim for it – than to explain to others theirs. Better to help train more scientists from less developed countries than consider ourselves as indispensable experts.

The real challenge 

Our society has somehow forgotten how to debate about alternative ways of life and social utopias. Partly to blame for the paralysing lack of discussion and orientation in our society are (technical) universities. People here would rather talk about technological breakthroughs than about social change.

It is unlikely that new technologies will make air travel carbon neutral in the next few decades. Technological innovations and digitalisation might indeed provide solutions, but what we urgently need are social innovations: new forms of living and an ecological economy.

Inventing flying was an innovation, and inventing non-flying will be as well. Innovation happens only if we try, experiment, and learn by doing. Why should the discovery of flying be considered such a milestone, while not flying doesn’t feature on any innovation programme?

We’re entering a decisive decade, and if we want to radically reverse CO2 emissions, resource consumption and species extinction, then we have to talk about system change and the consequences for our everyday lives. Thirty years from now, we’ll be living in a fundamentally different world – and we still have time to shape it.

Some further tips:

1. Cancel a flight, and spend the time in a remote alpine hut, where you can finally finish writing that long overdue article.

2. ETH Zurich has initiated a mobility platform that serves as a contact and coordination office for sustainable mobility at ETH, and aims to specifically address the dilemma of business air travel. (See also the description of ETH’s efforts on the Stay Grounded website here.)

3. Take a look at these two initiatives for reducing the academic CO2 footprint by flying less: Academic flying blog and reduce flying to academic conferences.